What is the 40% rule according to a Navy Seal?

When your mind tells you that you are exhausted and can't go any further, you are actually only at about 40% of your physical and mental capacity

This means that you have a significant 60% reserve that can be tapped into by pushing past perceived limitations.

But how do you tap into this 60% reserve?

For context, for years (especially in my mid-30s to mid-40s) I went down the rabbit hole of self-improvement. I listened to David Goggins audiobooks while running my first marathon (I ended up doing 2 in one month). I did therapy for 5+ years, religiously every week. To readjust my physical health, I tracked calories and hit 10,000 steps every single day for over a year.

In my 20’s and leading into my 30s - I was living an average life. I was someone who was vastly insecure, finding various ways to escape, and avoided at all costs to look in the mirror and take accountability for the pitfalls in my life. I was jumping around from job to job, and barely making ends meet to get by. I was at one point relying on my ex-wife (a hairstylist) to help cover our basic bills.

My lowest point was when I applied for jobs at retailers like Starbucks but could not get an interview. I ended up taking a job at a cancer care clinic answering phones for $12/hr. This was when I was in my early 30s.

I say all this because somehow I’ve been able to turn my life around. I’ve been able to build my own business, get paid as an expert, and live a life by my own rules. And this isn’t to gloat, but I’m constantly analyzing why I was able to change. What was that evolution like if I were to dissect it. How I can create a playbook or roadmap to help others live the life they want.

So here I go. This whole journey of self-improvement and growth starts with self-awareness. To take accountability for everything in your life and stop pointing fingers. Self-awareness allows you to realistically assess your strengths and weaknesses, and (if you choose to) improve your weaknesses.

For me, the journey to self-awareness stemmed from desperation. I had hit the lowest point in my life, and I was just tired of the way I was living. Paycheck to paycheck, going negative in my bank account, no stability. It was all wearing on me. Years and years of this, and I finally had enough.

What really pushed me to change, was actually my insecurities and lack of self-worth. All the times someone criticized me, I internalized it (even though they were trying to help). I started to build a mental list of every single person, and every single thing I was ever criticized about. This would become my “cookie jar” of shit. The dark memories I would go to when I wanted to quit. And that’s what motivated me day in and day out, and the byproduct of that was consistency.

So for me, the secret ingredients were: 1) desperation for change 2) having a repository of worthless moments (my fuel)

While I do believe discipline eats motivation for breakfast, in the beginning of any major life change - motivation is everything, because you likely don’t know what real discipline looks or feels like.

For me, motivation tends to be driven by the external - discipline is driven by the internal.

And after a certain level of consistency, you start to taste and see what discipline can do to improve your life. And how if you simply apply the same ideology to any other aspect of your life: physical, professional, mental, financial - you can change your circumstances.

This is how I got started - to changing my career path, my financial circumstances, my physical health, mental health - it all began with accepting my feeling of worthlessness, identifying where I felt worthless and why - and using it as fuel for making progress one day at a time. Until finally, after hundreds of days - you realize you are no longer the same person that started this journey, and that the realm of possibilities opens up.

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